Om Sweet Om

October 2009 Archives

Growing up, I always experienced Halloween as a clashing of cultures. More than any other American holiday, Halloween seemed to draw a line in the sand between the world that my Hindu immigrant parents resided in and the American suburban […]

Recently, a reader included this concern in his or her following comment to one of my earlier posts: Lastly, I do want to mention that I am not sure that the title of the blog refers to the sacred mantra […]

My inbox was flooded today with emails from friends, co-workers, and family members, full of smiley face emoticons and an overuse of exclamation marks, excitedly directing me to YouTube to see President Obama deliver his Diwali Message. The two minute […]

Is Asana Religious?Last week, I received an inquiry from a Christian theologian interested in showing that “the postures of Yoga” (asana) are directly tied to Hinduism and thus, cannot be easily incorporated into daily life by Christians. While the origin of yoga is undoubtedly tied to the Hindu sacred texts, th

India's Holy Men by Joey L.I just ran across these stunning images of Holy Men by photographer Joey L. The initial set of images are of Indian sadhus living in the holy city of Varanasi...and they are absolutely breathtaking.
http://www.joeyl.com/personal-galleries/holy-men-2/

The Idea of a Constructed Hindu IdentityThe following piece was written by my friend Raman Khanna, who is also a member of the Hindu American Foundation's Executive Council.
“Hinduism was invented recently.”
“The word Hindu is problematic.”
“It’s not accurate to speak of Hinduism, only Hinduisms.”
More than a decade has

Advice on kindnessMy yoga teacher sent me the below link to George Saunders' convocation speech at Syracuse University for the class of 2013. It's worth a read:
http://6thfloor.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/31/george-saunderss-advice-to-graduates/?src=me&ref=general&_r=0